The Puyuma language or Pinuyumayan (), is the language of the
Puyuma, an
indigenous people
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
of
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
. It is a divergent
Formosan language
The Formosan languages are a geographic grouping comprising the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, all of which are Austronesian. They do not form a single subfamily of Austronesian but rather nine separate subfamilies. The Taiwa ...
of the
Austronesian family. Most speakers are older adults.
Puyuma is one of the more divergent of the Austronesian languages and falls outside reconstructions of
Proto-Austronesian
Proto-Austronesian (commonly abbreviated as PAN or PAn) is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Proto-Austronesian is assumed to have begun to diversify ...
.
Dialects
The internal classification of Puyuma dialects below is from . Nanwang Puyuma is considered to be the relatively phonologically
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
but grammatically innovative, as in it preserves proto-Puyuma
voiced plosives but syncretizes the use of both oblique and genitive case.
*Proto-Puyuma
**Nanwang
**(''Main branch'')
***Pinaski–Ulivelivek
***Rikavung
***Kasavakan–Katipul
Puyuma-speaking villages are:
;Puyuma cluster ('born of the bamboo')
* Puyuma ()
* Apapulu ()
;Katipul cluster ('born of a stone')
* Alipai ()
* Pinaski (); 2 km north of Puyuma/Nanwang, and maintains close relations with it
* Pankiu ()
* Kasavakan ()
* Katratripul ()
* Likavung ()
* Tamalakaw ()
* Ulivelivek ()
Phonology
Puyuma has 18 consonants and 4 vowels:
Note that Teng uses for and for , unlike in official version. The official orthography is used in this article.
Grammar
Morphology
Puyuma verbs have four types of focus:
#Actor focus: Ø (no mark), -em-, -en- (after labials), me-, meʔ-, ma-
#Object focus: -aw
#Referent focus: -ay
#Instrumental focus: -anay
There are three verbal aspects:
#Perfect
#Imperfect
#Future
There are two modes:
#Imperative
#Hortative future
Affixes include:
*Perfect: Ø (no mark)
*Imperfect: Reduplication; -a-
*Future: Reduplication, sometimes only -a-
*Hortative future: -a-
*Imperative mode: Ø (no mark)
Syntax
Puyuma has a verb-initial word order.
Articles include:
*i – singular personal
*a – singular non-personal
*na – plural (personal and non-personal)
Pronouns
The Puyuma personal pronouns are:
Affixes
The Puyuma affixes are:
;Prefixes
*ika-: the shape of; forming; shaping
*ka-: stative marker
*kara-: collective, to do something together
*kare-: the number of times
*ki-: to get something
*kir-: to go against (voluntarily)
*kitu-: to become
*kur-: be exposed to; be together (passively)
*m-, ma-: actor voice affix/intransitive affix
*maka-: along; to face against
*mara-: comparative/superlative marker
*mar(e)-: reciprocal; plurality of relations
*mi-: to have; to use
*mu-: anticausative marker
*mutu-: to become, to transform into
*pa-/p-: causative marker
*pu-: put
*puka-: ordinal numeral marker
*piya-: to face a certain direction
*si-: to pretend to
*tara-: to use (an instrument), to speak (a language)
*tinu-: to simulate
*tua-: to make, to form
*u-: to go
*ya-: to belong to; nominalizer
;Suffixes
*-a: perfective marker; numeral classifier
*-an: nominalizer; collective/plural marker
*-anay: conveyance voice affix/transitive affix
*-aw: patient voice affix/transitive affix
*-ay: locative voice affix/transitive affix
*-i, -u: imperative transitive marker
;Infixes
*-in-: perfective marker
*-em-: actor voice affix/intransitive affix
;Circumfixes
*-in-anan: the members of
*ka- -an: a period of time
*muri- -an: the way one is doing something; the way something was done
*sa- -an: people doing things together
*sa- -enan: people belonging to the same community
*si- -an: nominalizer
*Ca- -an, CVCV- -an: collectivity, plurality
Notes
References
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External links
Yuánzhùmínzú yǔyán xiànshàng cídiǎn 原住民族語言線上詞典 – Puyuma search page at the "Aboriginal language online dictionary" website of the Indigenous Languages Research and Development Foundation
Puyuma teaching and leaning materials published by the Council of Indigenous Peoples of Taiwan
Puyuma translation of President Tsai Ing-wen's 2016 apology to indigenous people– published on the website of the presidential office
Formosan languages
Languages of Taiwan
Puyuma people
{{Austronesian-lang-stub